


Second Chances

by omega_owl



Series: Outsiders Alternate AU [1]
Category: The Outsiders - S. E. Hinton
Genre: 50's gals, Dating, F/M, Football, Friends to Dating, Great Gatsby spoilers, I do not condone the smoking smoking is bad, Original Character(s), POV Original Female Character, Smoking, supportive gal pals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-24
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2020-05-18 17:11:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 19,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19338922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/omega_owl/pseuds/omega_owl
Summary: History will be confronted and love will prevail in this story of secrets, healing, and redemption.In this alternate ending to S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders, Johnny survived the church fire, suffering only burns to show for it. The gang doesn't like to talk about it  - it was a rough time for them all. It has now been six months since the trial that acquitted Johnny of all charges in the name of self defense, but despite it all, he still hasn't come to terms with the events that brought him there...A few weeks ago, Rita O'Malley moved to Tulsa with her mother, finally leaving her deadbeat father behind. She's since made friends with a close-knit crew of girls from the East Side - led by Evie, girlfriend of Steve Randle of the Curtis outfit. And though she's seen the brutality of the division between Soc and grease in her neighborhood, she has no idea of the depth of the violence that her new hometown saw six months ago, or how it could possibly be connected to the quiet boy she seems to keep running into...So begins Second Chances, an Outsiders alternate ending...





	1. Rita

There were boys doing flips off the back of a car down the road. Real, honest-to-god gymnast flips. I just kinda stared at them with my brow all furrowed up the way Dannie says I should quit, ‘less I want it to stay like that. But I couldn’t look away.

There were three of them - a stockier redhead, a little darker one, and one who might have been blond. I couldn’t really see from how far away I was. Just doing flips and hamming it up.

The car in front of my house gave a sharp blast from its horn, and I snapped out of staring, gathered up my books in my arms, and hurried across my tiny front lawn to the curb, closing the chain-link fence behind me. We didn’t have a fence at my old house. I was still getting used to it, even after these few weeks.

Evie was driving, and she immediately jumped me once I pulled open the back side door. “Pick up the pace, slowpoke, we still gotta snag Ruthie and make it to school on time,” she ordered. 

Evie didn’t really care about school - she mostly just said it to boss us around. I’d only met her a few weeks ago, but that was the first thing I learned about her, real quick. Evie Lang doesn’t tolerate any fooling around. She has real short black hair and some kind of Oriental lineage in her features. There’s a kind of aura to her that tells you right off the bat that she’s tough as nails and won’t hesitate to show you, even though she’s only five-three and skinny as a rail. Her black eyes are upturned and always intense and smoldering under her thin brows, burning with a fire inside that seemed too big for her little body.

Billie Jo scooted over in the back seat to give me room before Evie threw the gearshift and almost blew a cylinder roaring off down the street. The poor girl beside me grabbed the door handle to keep from being rattled around. I liked Billie Jo. She was the gentlest out of Evie’s crew - Mags said that they used to run with a girl named Sandy who was even gentler, but she moved to Florida almost six months ago. Anyway, Billie Jo had blonde curls that bounced into her face if she didn’t hold them back with a tied head scarf. Her light brown eyes were always crinkling at the edges because she was always giggling. Except when Evie drove or she was real anxious - then her face went completely blank. She got anxious a lot. She was the youngest - only fifteen.

“Rolling stop,” I chided as Evie did just that.

“Don’t you start, backseat driver,” Evie snapped. “Bum a ride off someone else if you don’t like it.”

I just grinned.

Mags - who was sitting shotgun - turned around and turned a smirk on me. “By the way, what were  _ you  _ staring at when we rolled up?” she asked with a look on her face that said she already knew the answer. Margaret Tracy is boy-crazy.

I just jabbed a thumb over my shoulder, even though my street was long behind us by then. “Who was that doing the somersaults and cartwheels and junk down the street?” I asked.

“Probably Steve,” Evie groaned.

“Naw, it wasn’t Steve this time,” Mags smirked, proving that she definitely already knew the answer to her own question and was just looking for an excuse to talk about it. She was always smirking. “The Curtis outfit. Those boys are the only ones around that do that stuff. Bunch of hooligans, if you ask me.”

“Lot of lookers, though.”

“Oh, hands down. Those Curtis boys sure have some good genes. I’m pretty sure that was Two-Bit and Soda you were checking out, Rita, and the little one, what’s-his-name…”

Evie scrunched up her face at Mags with something like suspicion and confusion all in one. She gets real expressive like that. “ _ Johnny? _ ” she clarified, like she was baffled by why Mags had forgotten his name.

“Yeah, that’s the one. I always forget him.”

“Mags, how did you forget  _ Johnny? He’s  _ the one who…” Evie seemed to catch herself, and shook her head. “You’re nuts.”

“Well, I’m sorry, I can count on one hand the number of conversations I’ve had with that one all sixteen years of my life.”

Margaret had long, straight brown hair like mine that couldn’t hold a curl, except unlike me she doggedly tried to curl it anyways. Her blue eyes were always darting about, looking, observing, forgetting - she was kinda scatterbrained, said just about anything that came into her head. She wasn’t dumb, but school always made her feel pretty lousy because her memory and attention span was so short-lived. By the time we turned up the next corner, she was already talking about something completely different. The boys were already forgotten.

“You missed Ruthie’s turn,” Billie Jo piped up softly amid Mags’ aimless rambling. Evie swore - she swore a lot - and made a gut-wrenching two-point turn out of the nearest driveway.

“If I didn’t have Mags talkin’ my ear off, maybe we wouldn’t be having these problems,” she grumbled. Mags just grinned. Evie didn’t tolerate fooling around, but Mags was the only one in the group I’d seen who actively challenged that careful discipline she established. 

Ruthie was standing on her curb when we rolled up, and Evie had barely made a full stop before she was opening the door and sliding in next to me. “Drive,” she exclaimed, “We’re late as it is!”

“Good morning to you too, Ruthie,” Mags smirked.

“I wouldn’t be so late if it weren’t for all these kids in my car,” Evie said, and she beat it out of there as quick as she’d come.

Ruthie really did care about being late to school - she might have even loved learning even more than me, and that’s saying something. All those brains and reasoning skills had solidified her as the mom of the group. She even kind of looked it, too - plumper than the rest of us, chestnut hair in short waves, warm brown eyes. She could pass as twenty-one even though she was only seventeen, but she never used it when the other girls went out. She didn’t want alcohol or drugs interfering with her education. I could understand that.

She quit straightening her books in her lap - she’s kinda particular like that - and finally turned to acknowledge me. “Morning, Rita,” she said brightly, flashing a warm smile.

“Morning,” I smiled back. Ruthie had been the first to welcome me into the group. We were in most of the same A classes in school. “Ready for Manassas day?”

“Ready? Are you nuts? I’ve been waiting for this day for  _ weeks _ ,” Ruthie exclaimed, clutching her books.

“Who’s Manassas?” Mags asked, furrowing one eyebrow and cocking the other - a trick she said she’d picked up from one of her ex-boyfriends.

“ _ Who’s Manassas? _ Margaret, the  _ battle of Manassas Junction? _ ”

“American Civil War, 1861,” I offered.

“Oh, great, now you started it,” Evie groaned. Ruthie ignored her and started rambling off dates and names at Mags, who stared her down with that lone eyebrow raising higher and higher.

“Why even go to class if you already know all this stuff?” she finally asked.

Ruthie straightened her books again. “Some of us  _ give  _ a hang about our schooling, Margaret.”

“Like who.”

“Like me,” I piped up.

“Oh, see,” Mags said, “Look what you went and did, Ruth. There’s two of you in the gang now, book-crazy. At this rate,  _ none  _ of us will escape graduating without  _ some _ of your book smarts stuck in our brains. You’re gonna go and make us educated contributors to society if you keep this up.”

“Real bold of you to assume I’ll be able to override y’all’s hairbrained impulses just by reciting facts.”

Mags flicked her eyebrows and sent me a wink. The two of them hollered at each other good-naturedly all the way to the school. 

By the time Evie cut off a white Corvair by laying wheels into the last half-decent parking spot at the high school, and we all piled out of the car, they were still going at it, lost in their own bantering. They went on ahead of Evie, Billie Jo, and me.

The three of us left made our way through the chrome-plated maze, along with the rest of the students who drove. Cars were rolling in hot from every angle. Doors were slamming, engines were gunning, people were hollering, exhaust was choking the air in the wake of every car that roared by. Whether souped-up or brand-new, they all drove pretty wild.

A green Mustang slammed the brakes and laid on the horn at one point as a couple of boys with greasy hair and jeans jaywalked right into its path. They and the passengers exchanged lousy gestures and hollered insults before the Mustang sped by. The greasy-haired boys flipped up their collars and slouched off.

Those boys reminded me of my old friends from Des Moines. I’m kind of a tomboy, and I’d never had many girl friends before I moved to Tulsa. All my Iowa friends were the boys from the poor side.

Greasers.

“Big time Soc boys,” Evie muttered, yanking her jacket closer over her shoulders with a scowl and resuming her determined stride. “Come on.”

Soc. That was the word I was still getting used to. The rich kids. The West Side socials. In Iowa, we didn’t give them a name - mostly because there were so few of them. But there were almost as many of them here as there were greasers.

And I’d already seen the effects of that demographic split in the short time I’d been here.

The division grew more obvious the closer we got to the main entrance, where everyone was forced to bottleneck. A greaser right in front of us got shoved into his friend by a taller guy -  _ a Soc _ \- in a letterman jacket. Both greasers’ books clattered all over the pavement. The girl on the Soc’s arm yelled, “ _ Grease! _ ” before the two rich kids sauntered off into the crowd, laughing.

Billie Jo, true to form, immediately dropped down to help the boys pick up their things. People were shoving into them as they’d ducked to save their papers from the trampling feet. With Evie standing guard, I knelt next to Billie Jo and helped her gather some papers, too.

The boy in the jean jacket - the one who’d gotten hit in the first place - had his head down, his greased hair falling over his face, but his friend was more active. He was swatting away people’s feet, thanking us profusely, organizing his things. “Thanks,” he said, accepting a stack of papers from Billie Jo, and I suddenly realized I  _ knew  _ him. Ponyboy Curtis, the lone freshman in my English class. Reddish hair, big green eyes, kinda small.

“Are you guys okay?” I asked him as I offered him a book.

“Yeah, yeah, we’re just swell,” he said, going to take it before he suddenly did a double take and his head snapped up to study my face more closely. His eyebrows furrowed. “Hang on, you’re… you’re the new girl, right?”

“Rita O’Malley,” I said.

“Rita, right. Oh, right, you’re in my English class - glory, sorry I didn’t say something earlier.”

“Oh, no, don’t sweat it,” I smiled.

“Yeah.” He blinked as he realized I was still absently holding out the book to him. “Oh, sorry, that’s Johnny’s,” he said, angling his head at his friend.

I quickly handed it to the boy in the jean jacket - Johnny. He glanced up to take it and I got my first real good look at his face. It was darker than other people’s, like mine. His eyes were huge and dark, too, but he didn’t hold my gaze for very long. He took the book out of my hand with a murmured “Thanks” and looked back to the ground.

“No sweat,” I said, just as quiet, which kind of surprised me. Usually I’m pretty outgoing. I don’t know why I laid off just then.

The boys stood back up and headed into the school. Billie Jo stuck on them like glue - I guess she knew them - but I hung back with Evie because the crowds were thinning out and Ruthie and Mags had long since disappeared by themselves. Evie was shaking her head. “I hate to see that kid get picked on,” she muttered.

I frowned. “Johnny?”

She nodded. “One of the Curtis outfit Mags was talking about. He has it rough everywhere he turns - worse than Mags does, at least only  _ one  _ of her parents gets themself rip-roarin’ drunk every chance they get. Johnny… he’s got a lot on his mind. A lot he needs to work out.”

I just looked at her.

She blinked, then scoffed. “Don’t you go thinkin’ I’m sweet on the kid or nothing. Steve keeps me in the loop. Everyone in that gang would die for him, is all, and if the Socs would take a second to really look at him then maybe they’d realize they oughta leave him alone. He don’t deserve any of what came to him.”

_ Any of what came to him? _

Evie frowned as I looked at her even harder. “Nevermind. Forget it. Not my place.”

Not her place?  _ Everything  _ was Evie’s place, I thought to myself, but I kept my mouth shut about that. “You know,” I said to her instead, “You and Mags and Ruthie all talk about this Curtis outfit left and right, and I see ‘em around all the time, but I’ve never  _ met  _ these people, really.”

She suddenly blinked. “Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Well,  _ shoot _ , Rita, the hell you didn’t speak up about this earlier? I thought everyone on your street knew about your neighborhood’s boys.”

“I  _ am _ speaking up about it.”

Evie swore lightly, then prodded me with the eraser of her pencil. “You’re stickin’ with me after school, you hear? Get ahold of your mom. I’ll hook up with Steve and see if I can’t find out when the whole gang’ll be around.” She swore again. “Jesus, Rita, I thought you were practically a grease yourself back in Des Moines. Whatever. It’s  _ high  _ time you met your friendly neighborhood heroes, keeping these streets Soc-free since…”

Evie didn’t finish that sentence.

We walked on through the bustling halls in relative silence after that. I chose not to push her, but in doing so… I was starting to get the feeling that I was putting off something that was kind of inevitable.


	2. Johnny

It was real rare if we could get the whole gang together to play football in the field. Dallas didn’t show and Darry was working, but Soda was off and so was Steve so it was more than we usually had. I figured Pony and me counted as one person, seeing as we were so small. I kind of wished Dally’d come, though.

I loved football. It was like a fight - a fair one between two teams, I mean - except no one was really out for blood. We were all just blowing off steam, hollering and laughing too loud.

Except I shut right up when the banged-up old Ford pulled up to the field and Evie got out, along with another girl. I never knew how to act around girls, or how to talk around them, so I just brushed my hair down over my eyes more and stepped up kind of behind Soda. The game stopped.

“Hey, baby,” Steve grinned, lifting the football.

“Don’t mind us,” Evie drawled, leaning against her car and lighting a smoke. “We’re just stopping by.”

“Just stopping by? Why don’t ya come play?” Soda grinned to them. Soda couldn’t sit still to save his life - it’d kill him to just sit on the sidelines.

Evie brushed it off and said, “No chance,” just as the other girl seemed to perk up and said, “For real?”

Soda and Steve shared a look. I felt my eyes get wider. Soda had just spoken up to speak up, to say something, like he always did. The girls never actually took him up on that offer. Was this girl kidding? Trying to be cute? She sure didn’t look like she was kidding, her posture was all alert and hopeful.

“You wanna play, sweetheart?” Two-Bit asked. He looked like he was about to start bursting out laughing at the mere thought.

But the girl just said, “It’s Rita, actually,” and stepped onto the field. She was dead serious. Even Evie looked shocked. I know I was. “And yeah, I’ll play,” she added.

The boys were still kind of taken aback. Steve narrowed his eyes and looked her over. “You can’t play in a dress,” he said.

“Sure I can,” she said all confident-like. “I did it all the time in Iowa. I don’t see what’d make this any different.” She crossed her arms and looked Steve over right back. “And really, I don’t know why  _ you _ guys aren’t wearing them. A skirt’s gotta provide better range of motion than those jeans y’all are wearing.”

All of us simultaneously gave our own clothes a once-over before staring her down again. Ponyboy and I looked at each other. Now that she was closer, I recognized her as the new girl who’d helped the little blonde pick up our books that morning. She seemed to know Pony. Except now Pony was gawking like she’d just beamed down from a space ship, so he clearly didn’t know her as well as I thought. 

She shrugged her arms. “Look, do you want me to play or what? Way I see it, you’re short a man.”

“Yeah, we are short a _ man _ ,” Steve went to say, but Soda cut him off and said, “But we’d love to let you in the game, wouldn’t we, guys?”

Pony nodded. Two-Bit still looked like he was trying not to laugh, but he shrugged. I gave Soda a tiny shrug, too. Without Dally, it was Soda and Steve who needed a position filled - I wouldn’t have to talk to her. 

Even though she wasn’t acting like any girl I’d ever met before.

“Great,” the girl said, holding out her hands to Steve, waiting for the ball. He eyed it, eyed her, then lobbed it gently her way.

She caught it easily. “Come on, throw it like you mean it,” she said, “You telling me you boys can’t throw?” She suddenly reared up and sent the ball arcing through the air in a better spiral than most of us could pull off half the time. I realized too late that she’d thrown it to me, and I scrambled to catch it. I almost tripped over my own two feet I was so mixed up.

Steve looked like he was ready to belt something -  _ he  _ was a lousy arm and we all knew it - but Soda whooped. “Boy howdy, we got ourselves a player!” he exclaimed, sticking out his hand to the girl. “Sodapop Curtis,” he grinned like a loon. “That there’s Two-Bit Mathews, and that’s Steve Randle - but you run with his girl and her crew, don’tcha, so you know him.”

“Yeah,” she said, then nodded her chin in my and Pony’s direction. “And I know him, too. Ponyboy, from English.”

Two-Bit’s eyes went round. “You know this gal, kid?”

“Kinda,” he admitted. I suddenly realized that since she ran into him and me that morning, she might just recognize me, too, and I didn’t know what I’d do then…

“You know my brother?” Soda asked, still grinning.

“Wait, he’s your brother?”

“Sure is!”

“I can’t believe I didn’t put that one together. How many Curtises are there?”

“Three. We got an older brother Darrel - we all call him Darry - but he’s workin’. Hey, you met Johnny Cade, too?”

My heart jumped into my throat. I clutched the ball tighter as she finally seemed to notice me. She was a real looker, for a greaser girl. Dark. Straight brown hair. Lookers always made me the most nervous.

She nodded slow, then faster. “Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, I see him around school sometimes.”

“You  _ see _ him?” Two-Bit exclaimed, smacking his forehead. “Shoot, baby, you got X-ray vision? He always does such a good job of making himself invisible!”

“Aw, lay off,” Pony said, taking the ball out of my hands and chucking it at him. Two-Bit just laughed.

Soda grinned. “Well, good, that’s about everyone.”

“Not Dally,” Steve said.

“Dally ain’t playin’,” Pony retorted.

“ _ I  _ say,” Two-Bit declared, holding up the football, “We all quit gabbing and get to playing, if Miss Rita is down.”

“I been down,” she smiled. “And if you’re calling me ‘Miss’ just cause you want to go easy on me, don’t. I want to  _ play _ .”

“Alright then, but don’t say we didn’t warn ya - Pony’s fast.”

She smirked at us. Playing football in a skirt. She sure was different. I could start to see how a guy might just go about being comfortable around a girl like her. How he might actually find something worthwhile to say.

Yeah, I thought to myself as the game kicked off, I could get used to having a girl like Rita around.


	3. Rita

“I mean, you shoulda seen this girl go. She played better than half those kids. She threw better than my boyfriend!”

“Evie, everyone can throw better than your boyfriend.”

“Aw, you know what I’m trying to say. I didn’t realize we picked up the first female National Football League superstar.”

I laughed. “Come on, I’m not that good. Dannie was the one who taught me everything I oughta know about sports, our dad loves watching them but he doesn’t do dirt when it comes to teaching.”

“Well, whatever it was, it sounds like you made a real name for yourself out there on the field,” Ruthie smiled. We were all riding out to the DX after school in Evie’s piece-of-junk Ford - everyone needed cigarettes except for Billie Jo who didn’t smoke, and we figured we’d pick up some Cokes if we could just to make her feel included.

I only shrugged, but it got me thinking back to yesterday. I really loved playing with those guys. Most of them I had seen around, and I’m real fast at making friends, so by the time the sun was setting I felt like I’d really warmed up to them. It was the first time I really felt normal again, I realized. Like I was back in Des Moines, throwing the ball around with my best guy friends. I don’t know why I hadn’t introduced myself earlier… but maybe that was just it. Maybe I was scared of finding some piece of familiarity in Tulsa, because if I did then it’d be like I was replacing my old memories and friends.

But Soda and Two-Bit and Pony were nothing like Andrew and TJ and Joey, neither were Evie or Ruthie or Mags. Different people, different cities, but still with their own places in my memory. I wasn’t replacing them. I never could.

But then again, in shying away for those weeks, I had opened myself up to befriending some of the coolest girls I’d ever known.  _ They  _ were something completely new, completely Tulsa, and even though I had finally filled a void and embraced my tomboy side again, I sure as hell wasn’t gonna drop those girls all of a sudden. They were there for keeps.

“Glory, do I need a  _ smoke _ ,” Mags complained. “Does anyone have one on them? Evie, you got one in here somewhere?”

“Oh, sure, in the pneumatic compartment right next to the car lighter, under the palette of makeup and my spare string of pearls. Do I look like a Soc to you? The hell you think we’re going to the DX for?”

Mags groaned, and Ruthie grinned. “Evie, those are your rodeo pearls, right?”

Evie grinned and made a hairpin turn. “Rodeo pearls. Naw, you think I keep  _ those  _ next to my  _ makeup _ ? I got my  _ emergency  _ pearls in my pneumatic compartment, just in case I walk out my door half-dressed.”

“And we can’t have  _ that _ . Evie Lang, out on the town without at least  _ one  _ string of oyster guts? That would be a  _ travesty _ ,” Mags smirked.

“Travesty.” Evie was grinning so wide at the very thought that I could see her pointed incisors. She reminded me of a cat. Suddenly, as we almost hopped the curb pulling into the DX parking lot, her expression changed, one eyebrow up. I could see it in her rearview mirror. “Hel-lo, what have we here?” she drawled.

Mags practically pressed her face against the window. “Evie,” she breathed, “Why didn’t you tell us that  _ Steve and Co.  _ were working today?”

“Cool it, would ya? I forgot it was Tuesday.”

“But isn’t  _ this  _ a nice surprise.” Mags rummaged around in her pockets until she found her change, then slapped it into Ruthie’s hands as Evie parked roughly. “Change of plans. Ruth, would you be an absolute doll and buy my cigarettes for me?”

“Where are you goin’?” Billie Jo asked.

Mags gave her a look as if she’d grown three heads. “To talk with some  _ boys _ ,” she said conspiratorially before hopping out the door. Ruthie closed her fist around her coins and sighed.

“Come on,” Evie said, getting out as well. We all piled out. Billie Jo scrambled to get her cardigan from her seat and throw it around her shoulders before she slammed the door shut. Ruthie waited for her - ever the mom - and we headed to the tiny gas station store.

Sure enough, Steve Randle and another person were leaning on the pump under the awning. Sodapop Curtis completed the trio, all hopped up on the hood of the car in the garage right next to him, smiling pretty at Mags who just arrived over there. Both boys were in their light blue collared DX shirts. Steve looked over at us as we opened the door to the store, and he cracked a smile. “I knew that was you,” he said to Evie. “No one takes out stop signs and little kids as well as my girl.”

“Watch that mouth of yours or I’ll hit you next,” she smirked right back, holding open the door to let the rest of us through.

“I think I like the sound of that,” I heard the greaser say before Evie let the door slam shut behind her. Ruthie gave her a stern look, but Evie just shrugged coyly and selected her cigarette pack from the display.

We got our smokes and bottles of soda inside, then headed back out to catch up with Mags and the boys. Mags fascinated me. She had been overdramatic and eager as all get-out in the car, but you couldn’t tell it when she talked to Soda. She was as cool and indifferent as I’d ever seen her. She might have been scatterbrained, but she knew how to sweet-talk a guy.

That was all it was, though, whenever Mags did it. Just sweet-talk. She was hardly ever looking for a date or anything, she just loved the game. Plenty of boys got mad at her for being like that - a guy once pulled a knife on her at the Nightly Double, and probably would have used it if Evie hadn’t pulled her own and told him to beat it. But Soda or Steve weren’t like that with Mags. They knew how to play her game and were perfectly happy to leave it at that. Both of them had known Evie’s crew for long enough.

Evie leaned on Steve and used his collar to block the wind so she could light up her smoke. Soda tossed us his lighter so the rest of us girls could, too. The conversation eventually drifted right back to my football debut last night, and that’s when the blond Curtis brother directed our attention to that third boy who’d been standing with them when we drove up.

The little dark one in the jean jacket. Johnny.

I had barely registered he was there, hands in his pockets, half-lounging in the shadow of the garage awning. He gave us all an awkward smile at the attention before he looked down at his shoes with those big, dark eyes. His eyes were kinda pretty when he actually looked up.

Once the conversation drifted away again - to who’s going steady this week, or who got jumped by the movie house, or who won the other night’s drag race and how and when and why - Johnny seemed to ease up. He came partially out of the shadows to lean against the exterior wall beside me. 

No one was talking in my direction, so I gave him a smile. “Hey,” I said casually. His head snapped up like he was surprised that someone would talk to him, and the fleeting smile he gave back seemed kind of strained. “Hey,” he murmured.

He still looked a little nervous, so I angled my open pack of cigarettes his way. He blinked, then took one gingerly and said, “Thanks.” Another small smile. Once he lit it, he turned to me again and said, “You like football, huh.”

“Yeah,” I nodded.

“You’re good.”

“Thanks.” I looked him over. “You’re not so bad yourself, from what I could see.”

Another small smile. I took a sip of my Coke before he spoke again. “So… you’re new.”

“I am.” I studied his face as we talked. His eyes were definitely real pretty, dark as they were. And he was good-looking, I supposed. Not like Sodapop’s silver screen charm, a different kind. I couldn’t put my finger on it.

He was nodding. “Where you from?”

“Iowa. Des Moines.”

“Iowa.” He looked off down the street, as if he could see right through the buildings to the countryside, to my home state. “What’s it like? What’s out there?” he asked.

“Corn.”

He huffed a laugh, raising his eyebrows until they disappeared into his long, black hair.

“I’m serious,” I grinned. “There’s corn out there and not much else. No money, that’s for sure.”

“They got girls’ football coaches out there, too?”

Now I laughed. “Nah,” I said.

“Well, howd’ja get so good?”

“My dad always has a game on the TV. But he can’t teach anything for dirt, so me and Dannie taught ourselves. There was also a gang of greasers on my street that liked to kick the ball around - like you and your outfit - and we’d buddy around with them all the time, play with them. Dannie was always team captain, no one could snap and run half as good.”

Johnny took another drag and blew out the smoke as he kept his gaze on the horizon he couldn’t see because of the buildings. “Your Dannie sounds like a cool ol’ guy,” he said.

Now it was my turn to raise my eyebrows. “Dannie?” I asked. “Dannie’s my sister.”

He blinked. Snapped his head around to look me right in the eye. Surprised. “O-oh.”

“Dannie’s short for Danielle O’Malley.” I was grinning. “She graduated high school last year. Mom wanted to put her through before we picked up and left. She got a scholarship for her grades. She goes to college, now.”

“Oh.”

“What about you?”

“What  _ about  _ me?”

“You have any siblings?”

He shook his head, then reconsidered. “I mean,” he shrugged, “I got the gang. They’re the best brothers I could ask for.” But his eyes were sad, downcast. I wised up and dropped the topic. I couldn’t really talk when it came to a lousy home life, but I could pick up on the signs in someone else real quick. It was one of the benefits of being so outgoing.

I lost track of how long we spent talking. The rest of the group didn’t pull us into their conversations that often, and when they did I always ended up just talking to Johnny again. By the time Evie pecked Steve on the neck and hollered for the rest of us to get in the car if we didn’t want to get left, I was having a grand old time and was reluctant to leave so soon. But in the end, Evie’s word was law. I said goodbye to the boys - but mostly to Johnny.

He waved back. I hadn’t realized it, but as we’d been talking, he’d moved out of the shadows so he wasn’t hidden by them anymore. Maybe the sun had had something to do with it, too, but either way, I couldn’t overlook him, now.

“Maybe I’ll see you around,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said. His small smile wasn’t fleeting anymore. “See you.”

Evie blared the horn and I got into the car.


	4. Rita

I did see him around. Ponyboy and Two-Bit and Johnny were in the same lunch period as me and Billie Jo, so we combined our tables early on and started sitting together. Two-Bit was a riot. He kept us all in stitches. One time he was getting clever, trying to balance his chair on the two back legs so he could spy on a table of Socs across the room, but naturally he tipped too far and went clattering over with a loud bang. Pony and Johnny broke into laughter. It was the first time I’d seen Johnny laugh - really laugh. He looked nothing like the boy with his head down whose books I helped pick up when he did that.

Besides Johnny, I ended up spending a decent bit of time around Ponyboy, too. Once I’d identified him in my English class, we took to partnering up from time to time. Everyone else in that A class was a Soc so us East Side kids had to stick together. He was a nice kid. Real smart. Daydreamed a lot and got called out by the teacher all the time.

Outside of school, I hunted action with Evie’s crew at the bowling alley arcade or the local pool hall with the bar out back or the little shops around the movie house, even though we never bought anything. We drove into the Nightly Double one night to get together with half the greaser girls in town. Mags got picked up by a couple of guys and got a ride home from them, but the rest of us were happy just leaning into other girls’ car windows and hopping in their back seats all night.

When I wasn’t with them or working on homework at home, I started hanging around with the Curtis outfit more often. It was easy, since their usual haunts were just down the block from me. Soda was always friendly and so was Darry, his older brother, who I met when the whole gang jumped the Curtis house hunting for chocolate cake. Steve I don’t think ever forgave me for showing him up at football, but he knew I knew Evie and plus Soda liked me around so he didn’t complain too much. And of course there was always Pony and Johnny.

I also met Dallas Winston, or Dally as everyone called him. He’d wandered up when a bunch of us were having a smoke in the vacant lot. He scowled deeper the closer he got to me, when I didn’t stand up and shy away from his fearsome presence. I  _ was  _ kind of nervous just seeing him in person, but I could tell that this wasn’t someone I ought to show that to. So I stood my ground.

“Who’s this,” he drawled grumpily. His icy blue eyes drilled into me.

“Rita,” I said plainly.

“The football superstar,” Two-Bit said, dragging on his cigarette. “You missed her big debut the other day.”

“Oh.” Dally gave up scowling and leaned against the wall. “You.”

“Nice to meet you, too, Dallas,” I said.

He sighed. “Since when do we start invitin’ the broads to gang meetings, man?”

“Aw, don’t be like that, Dal,” Soda said. “She invited herself. She digs. Lay off her.”

“She moved into the old DiCicco house up the street from Iowa,” Pony said. Those Curtis boys always took up for me.

“Whatever.” Dally had sized me up and written me off as not a threat. I figured that would probably be the best I would get out of him and decided to ignore him right back.

~

Johnny never did his homework at his house. He liked to bring it to the vacant lot, instead. Pony took to joining him, and sooner or later so did I. Half the time we ended up helping each other out, but the other half of the time the rest of the gang dropped by and acted like it was a regular hang-out instead of a study session, so we got distracted easily. 

Well… it was mostly Pony and me. Even if Dally was hanging around, Johnny almost always tried to focus on his work. I could tell it frustrated him when he couldn’t, which was more often than not. Pony had let on that he really did try in school, but it was hard for him.

I noticed him reading  _ The Great Gatsby _ one day when I came to the lot with my notes from my own English class. Ponyboy was already there, Soda too. Johnny was holding the blue book with both hands, his notebook open beside him, completely blank. His eyebrows were furrowed and creased as his eyes flicked over the same passage over and over again.

“Hey,” I said, kneeling down. My skirt pooled over my crossed legs and I cocked my head to the side. “ _ Great Gatsby _ , huh?”

Johnny finally looked up and his mouth twitched. “Hey. Yeah.”

“Do you like it? Where are you at?”

He shrugged, letting the book fall into his lap and gazing off, squeezing his eyes shut like they hurt him. “I dunno,” he mumbled at length. “They’re talking ‘bout bonds and eggs and I just… I can’t dig. I can’t.”

I picked up the book and skimmed the part he was stuck on. “ _ And so it happened that on a warm windy evening I drove over to East Egg to see two old friends whom I scarcely knew at all _ ,” I read aloud. I looked at him. “Well, shoot, Johnny, you haven’t even got to the good parts yet!”

“There are good parts?” He looked dubious.

“Sure are. Parties, dinners, heated confrontations - you’re just stuck in all the lousy background he puts in the beginning. Bored me half to death myself.”

Ponyboy was staring at me, his own work abandoned. “Read that bit again, Rita,” he said. I did. He stuck the eraser of his pencil at me as he started talking. “Cherry said something like that once. About good friends she barely knew over on the West Side. She said the Socs buddy around and throw beer blasts for kicks, but none of them really  _ know  _ each other, not like the greasers do. They’re too busy being rich and sophisticated.”

I blinked. “Really?” I shook my head. “Have you read this book before, Pony?”

“Nup.”

“Cause that’s the whole point,” I exclaimed. “There’s a split between the rich and the poor, and the rich people are too busy being rich and enjoying themselves to really care about the people around them at all -”

“Where’d you get all that from?” Johnny frowned.

“Oh, you gotta keep reading, Johnny, it gets so good. It’s not all like that first introduction bit. You wait ‘till they talk about the Valley of Ashes in chapter two, boy is there some killer juxtaposition there -”

“What’s the Valley of Ashes?” Ponyboy’s eyes were wide with awe. “Is there really a split between Soc and grease?”

“Well, they don’t call it that, it’s more like the rich mansion owners exploiting the factory workers, but now that I think about it there are a  _ lot  _ of connections you can draw between this book and Tulsa - the Valley of Ashes is like their East Side, the Eggs like the West…”

“Shoot, maybe  _ I  _ should read this book, what’s it called…  _ The Great Gatsby _ -”

“Maybe you should.” Johnny suddenly shot to his feet and shoved his hands in his pockets. There was a hurt kind of crack in his voice. He left his notebook open on the dusty ground and set off across the street. “If y’all can find all this stuff outta a book you never even read,” he snapped over his shoulder.

We all blinked. I reacted first, scrambling to my feet. “Hey,” I snapped back. “Johnny!”

He slowed down but didn’t turn around. I blocked his path once I caught up to him. He was glowering, but he didn’t look angry - just hurt. Like a cornered puppy. “Where do you think you’re going?” I frowned.

“He shied with a scowl. He must have picked it up from Dally. “Home,” he said.

“You left your books.”

“Yeah.”

“You’re obviously not done whatever work you were supposed to do. You’re not even through the first chapter.”

“Yeah.”

“So you’re  _ not  _ going home. At least pick up your stuff.”

“ _ Look _ .” He squeezed his eyes shut again. “I’m not gonna  _ get  _ through the first chapter, okay? I can’t focus, even without the rest of the gang talkin’ my ear off. I can’t do it. I ain’t like you and Pony. I’m… I’m dumb as a rock.”

“No, you’re not,” I said sharply. I was all fired up from discussing the book and I was starting to get mad. I did have kind of a short temper.

“I got held back a year, and Pony got put up one. So why should I even try?”

“Because you’ll never  _ get  _ any better if you don’t pick up that book and give it a shot.”

“It won’t do any good.” He tried to brush past me. “Just leave me alone.”

“ _ Pick up the damn book, Johnny Cade _ ,” I snapped, grabbing his arm to keep him from escaping.

And Johnny flinched.

Hard.

So hard, he almost looked like he was ducking to avoid a physical blow. There was no more dejection in his wide, dark eyes, wider than I’d ever seen them. It was all fear. Instinctual, reflexive terror.

We both froze. I was still holding his arm. I could see his chest heaving as his breathing came faster. He and I just stared at each other for a long, silent minute, neither of us moving first, barely daring to breathe.

Slowly, I relaxed my grip on his arm and he took a step back. Still staring. He hugged his arms around himself like there was a sudden chill. 

There was once a time in his past when a grab like that was followed with a real beating, I realized. Probably lots of times. Countless. When shouting meant volatility and volatility meant blows. I had read him right, back at the DX when he was talking about his family. I hadn’t been crazy when I spotted that dark bruise just under his collar the other day. He hadn’t brought it up.

Because why would you bring up the fact that someone at home hit you every time they were hacked off and screaming?

I swallowed, suddenly afraid that any noise I’d make would scare him more than I already unwittingly had. “I’m sorry,” I breathed. I held up both hands slowly and took a step back, too. “I’m sorry, I… I didn’t mean to do that.” My temper and my tough love had never scared anyone before, but now I’d just hurt the last of my friends I’d ever want to hurt. And badly, too. He was still fixing me with that wide-eyed stare.

But I couldn’t let it end like that. I slowly pointed back to the lot. “You can go,” I said quietly. “Just… let me get your things. Please. They… shouldn’t stay out here. You know? It might… rain, or something.”

He looked up at the cloudless sky, then down at his feet. He was still hugging his elbows. Mutely, he nodded and whispered, “Sure.”

“Okay.” Gingerly I turned, as if looking away from him would make him disappear in a puff of smoke. He sure looked like he was fixing to do just that. I didn’t know why he just chose to stand there waiting for me to come back, to be real honest. I picked up his notebook and pencil and copy of  _ The Great Gatsby _ from where he had intended to leave them in the dust. I was vaguely aware of the fact that our exchange hadn’t happened all that far from the lot, and that the Curtis brothers were both staring at me, having heard every word, but I ignored them.

I handed Johnny his things, looking everywhere but his face. Absently, I brushed away an unruly strand of hair behind my ear. I felt him take the books from me, my fingers suddenly clasping open air. “You’re not dumb,” I found myself saying. I forced myself to meet his eyes, if only to show him that I really meant it. “You’re not, you know. Some people just… learn slower than others. That doesn’t mean you’re dumb, in any way.”

He glanced down at the blue book. Thinking. Digesting what I said. At length, he shook his head. “I’ve been trying to dig books for sixteen years,” he said. “And I can go give this book you love so much a shot, one more time, but… I’ve never gotten it before on my own, and I don’t think I ever will. It’s just never worked out before.”

I shrugged hesitantly. “You’ve never had me around before,” I offered.

His expression turned wary, pained. “Look, I’m not lookin’ for your charity -”

“I’m not offering.” I rubbed my own arm. “Johnny, I’m… I’m sorry I hollered at you just now. I really am. I just want to make amends.” He was studying the cover of the book. Now I was the one with my arms wrapped around my middle. “Look, I shouldn’t have snapped at you over you getting upset. Let me help you with the book… so you don’t have to be upset again?”

He quirked his mouth to the side. “How?” he asked.

I shrugged. I really didn’t have a solid plan beyond ‘help’. “I could read it over, give you some pointers on the important parts… I dunno, I probably  _ should  _ read it again anyway…”

His expression suddenly lit up, like he was remembering something, and he said, “Could you read it aloud?”

“Sure,” I blinked. “Yeah, I can do that. Does it help, hearing it instead of reading?”

“Yeah.” He shrugged. “The only book I ever half-liked was  _ Gone With The Wind _ , I… had most of that read aloud to me.”

“No way! I loved  _ Gone With The Wind _ !”

“Me, too,” he smiled sheepishly. “I really kinda dug all those old Southern boys, bein’ gallant and real gentlemanly all the time.”

“ _ Well _ , if you like the gentlemanly types,” I said, “You are gonna go crazy for Jay Gatsby. He’s the tuffest ol’ gentleman there ever was…”

We came back to the lot and I cracked open the book from the beginning, and all three boys listened in as I read the first page:  _ In my younger and more vulnerable years, my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since…  _


	5. Johnny

I was sweet on her.

I probably shoulda figured that out sooner, but I told you I’m pretty slow on the uptake. I think I realized it for real one day when Rita didn’t show at the lot to finish up a chapter of  _ The Great Gatsby _ . The lot homework group had become a pretty regular meeting, but she said later that she’d had to skip that day for some appointment or another. It really bummed me out. More than usual. I had Pony, and usually that made it okay when Dally was in the cooler or off at Buck’s or Tim’s, but for some reason I still felt antsy when it was  _ Rita  _ I was missing. I kept trying to look off down the street that day instead of focusing on the book as if I was half-expecting her to be walking towards us after all. But she never did, not that day, at least.

I figured as I kicked rocks all the way home that maybe I felt all mixed up inside this time because she wasn’t really just a friend to me. Not anymore. I thought that since she was different than other girls, easier to talk to, I could almost consider her one of the boys. She played football and talked rough when she had to, just like any one of us.

But none of the gang was good-looking in her nice kind of girl way. None of the gang made me feel like they  _ saw  _ me like she did. I could call her one of the boys till I turned blue in the face, but in the end she was still a girl and I realized I kinda dug her.

It was the reading that really did it, seeing her almost every day and listening to her read. She did a better job at it than Ponyboy back in the church with  _ Gone With The Wind _ \- I mean Pony was fine but Rita’s voice was real expressive, and she even did a half-decent job of the different characters’ voices so I could keep them straight. I loved hearing her read. And the more she did, the more I started thinking maybe I liked  _ watching  _ her read, too. Her mouth as she said the words…

“So. Rita.”

I suddenly blinked, realizing I had been staring out the back window of the Curtis’ kitchen for a while. Sodapop was leaning on the counter and raising an eyebrow as he smirked. My heart gave a kind of jolt like an electric shock upon hearing him say her name.  _ Yeah. I’m sweet on her for sure.  _ “What about her?” I mumbled.

His smirk only grew bigger. Soda’s a real nut for love stuff. “She’s a looker, that one.”

“Yeah,” I shrugged.

“How have your… study sessions been goin’?”

“Jus’ fine.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“You into her a little bit?”

“Maybe.”

Soda’s grin widened and his brown eyes just about sparkled. “Knew it.”

“Yeah, yeah, don’t go hollerin’ it across town,” I murmured.

“Johnny Cade, into the new girl Rita O’Malley. You know, if y’all get married, she’s gonna make you rich and famous, bein’ the husband of a football star and all. That’s a deal and a half, right there.”

“Who said anything about gettin’ married?” I blushed.

“Oh, right, guess there’s this thing called ‘goin’ steady’ first, isn’t there.” He hopped up on the counter just as Ponyboy came out of their shared bedroom, yawning. “Hey there, Pony-kid, you know Johnny’s sweet on Rita?”

“Huh?” he blinked, realizing I was there. I’d slept on their couch overnight, he’d been asleep when I showed up. “Oh, yeah, I do. Hi, Johnny.”

“Whatta ya mean, you do?” I squeaked.

“You were gazin’ all dreamy at her face yesterday when she was reading in the lot.” He opened the icebox and peered in. “Soda, we got any cake?”

“We got cocoa and sugar and eggs,” Soda replied. Pony groaned.

I was still stuck on what Pony said. “Was it really all dreamy?” I worried. “I didn’t think it was noticeable.”

“Well, no it wasn’t, really.” The younger Curtis brother went hunting for cake-making ingredients. “You were just looking at her but I thought it was cute, that’s all. I don’t think she noticed, don’t worry.”

“Oh.” For some reason, him reassuring me didn’t make me feel any hotter. I actually felt kind of down all of a sudden. Maybe I wanted her to notice. Don’t know what I’d do if she did, but it would have been nice to not have to say anything to her about it.

“You plann’ on asking her to go steady sometime?” Soda asked.

My insides turned to ice, and I shrugged, feeling myself close up again. “I dunno.”

“You  _ wanna _ go steady, don’tcha?”

“Well… yeah, it’s just…”

“Shy?”

“Bob.”

And there it was.  _ That  _ got the mood in the room dropping way down. Pony quit his searching. Soda’s mouth slowly closed.

We didn’t talk about Bob. We barely talked about saving those kids from the church fire, because even that dug up the reason we were in the church in the first place. No one in the gang brought it up. Ever. No one brought up how Darry and Soda and Pony almost got split up, no one brought up how my back was all scarred from the fire now, no one brought up those five days Pony and I spent on the run from the cops.

I’d been wondering why I didn’t die in that fire for six months, to be honest. I may have had the time of my life being gallant in there…

But I had someone’s blood on my hands, and I couldn’t seem to wash it off.

I thought it’d get easier as time went on, living with the fact that I should be dead or locked up for what I did by the fountain, but it didn’t. It got worse. I’d be walking through school, or see that a new movie came out, or hear about something happening in the news, and the thought would just pop into my brain that Bob isn’t around anymore to see all of it. He never got the chance, because he used to be here but then he suddenly  _ wasn’t  _ and he never got to know about anything that happened after.

Because of me.

Bob scared me half to death - the thought of his sneering face still did - but I couldn’t stop thinking about him no matter how hard I tried.

And now that Rita was around, that added a whole other level to the whole thing. I really dug her. A lot. But every time I thought I might like to ask to go steady or hold her hand or lay my head on her shoulder while she read, I thought about Bob and dropped it real fast.

Because she didn’t know.

No one talked about it. Steve had even made sure his girl Evie kept her trap shut and got all her friends to do the same. Friends Rita hung around with when she wasn’t with us.

Rita had no idea what I did.

And if she found out, there was no way she’d stick around. She’d beat it. For good.

“Think… think someone should tell her ‘bout it?” Pony hazarded.

My eyes got huge. “No!”

“Are you outta your mind, Pony?” Soda exclaimed.

“I really think someone should let her know.”

“You’re nuts - look at Johnnycake, you got him all white as a sheet now. We  _ can’t  _ let her know, not if we want her around still after we do.”

“Yeah,” I whispered.

Pony stuck his hands under his arms as he looked between the two of us. “Listen,” he warned, “It’s not like you guys can keep it a secret forever.”

“Watch me, bud. I’ll take it to my grave if it gives Johnny a shot.”

“She’s  _ gonna  _ find out, Soda, if not from you then from someone else. It’s gonna get out. I really think we oughta make sure it gets out on our terms so it doesn’t smack her in the face down the road.  _ That’ll  _ hurt her a whole lot more, seeing as she’ll realize we all knew and no one cared to let her in.”

“Soda’s right,” I said quietly to Pony. “We… we gotta try and keep it down. Please.”

He chewed on his lip for a long time before he sighed through his nose. “Fine,” he muttered. “Fine. I’ll keep my trap shut.”

“Thanks.” I offered him a smile.

He didn’t look at me, just went back to making cake. “But  _ you  _ oughta tell her.”

I didn’t say anything.

Soda hopped off the table and looped an arm around my shoulder, leading me out of the kitchen. “Don’t you worry, Johnnycake. I won’t let anyone make a peep about you, not on my watch.”

“Thanks.” I still felt kinda lousy. Bringing up Bob always did. I guess that’s why no one ever brought him up.

Soda picked up on that, as usual. “Hey,” he said, grinning, “Let’s make you a plan.”

“Plan?” I frowned. “Plan for what?”

“Gettin’ you and Rita together, what else?”

“Oh.” 

“Forget Bob, he ain’t gonna be an issue for you no more. And listen - I got a whole system worked out for this kinda stuff. You’re already pretty close with her and you do homework together and all, so you’re already on a roll here. Wanna here what I propose?”

Boy, was Soda’s grin contagious. “Okay,” I said. Maybe… maybe we could keep it down forever. Maybe I really  _ didn’t  _ have to worry about it. Maybe I could bury it deep enough that no one - not even me - would be able to find it ever again.

“Alright,” said Sodapop. “Where do y’all like to eat?”

~

By the time I left the Curtis house, Soda had me feeling like I could take on the world. He’d good like that, hyping things up. I think he might have been even more excited about it than I was, which was saying a lot. I’d never even dreamed of having a shot with a girl before, but now I felt like I stood a chance.

I picked her up the next day. A tall lady that was the spitting image of Rita except darker answered the door - her mom, I guess. My stomach felt sick from nerves but somehow Rita appeared behind her and said sure when I told her I was heading into town and was wondering if she’d want to tag along. 

We headed off down the street to the shopping center on the corner of Pickett and Sutton together. She didn’t ask any questions as to where we were going specifically, or if we were meeting anyone along the way. She didn’t even question why I was wondering if she’d like to come along with me out of the blue in the first place. She was just happy to go.

I didn’t have much money and neither did she, but Soda spotted me an extra dollar which covered a couple Cokes pooled together. We even had enough left over for ice cream from down the street.

She talked my ear off most of the time, and I was happy just listening along, listening to her voice go up and down and all over the place the way it always did. I had this warm feeling deep in my chest that wouldn’t go away. I didn’t mind, though. I felt real good. Like I was saving those kids all over again. Like I was the tuffest guy alive. She made me feel like that when she smiled at me or asked me about something or even just walked next to me.

By the time it started to get dark - I  _ had  _ picked her up kinda late, I guessed - we lit cigarettes and started heading home. She was still chatting happily. I didn’t know how she came up with so many things to say, and I found myself asking her just that.

“Oh,” she said, waving her cigarette in the air, “I really don’t know. There’s just all kinds of things going on t talk about, I guess, and I do tend to run my mouth when I’m nervous, according to Dannie… I dunno, I just…” She shrugged and took a drag.

I frowned for the first time in hours. Hours. I didn’t remember the last time I’d smiled for so long. “Are… are you nervous now?”

Her eyes flicked to me, then away. “Course not, why do you ask?”

“You been running your mouth all evening.”

“Have I?” She took another drag, idly.

“Yeah.” I shoved my hand into my pocket. “Are you sure you’re okay, Rita?”

She shrugged again, shook her head. “I’ve always run around with a big group,” she said. “I’m most comfortable in a big group, I guess. One on one is… just different.”

“Is it me? Am I making you -”

“Oh, gosh, no, it’s not you, Johnny, I like you a whole bunch. I just feel like I gotta… compensate for the lack of people around by talking your ear off, you know?” I blinked. She blinked right back. “Sorry about that, I guess,” she laughed. Nervously. She looked kind of pink. “And… well, not many guys have ever invited me along one-on-one with them much, so I… guess I’m just not used to this kind of thing.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“Don’t sweat it, this was real fun.” She grinned and bumped me with her shoulder. Right over the burn scars she couldn’t see under my T-shirt and jeans jacket. I fought to keep a wince off my face. “We should do this again, so we can both get used to it, huh?”

I thought about what she said:  _ I like you a whole bunch. _ And now she wanted to go out one-on-one with me. Again.

I didn’t beat it out of there that day she grabbed me by the lot even though she gave me every chance to and I don’t think she would have chased me if I did. She’d felt too lousy about her own actions and how it made me feel to risk spooking me again. I knew her pretty good, and I knew she’d never grab me or scream like she did ever again. She sounded like my mom when she did.

But I didn’t run away because that just wasn’t her, wasn’t what she wanted to be. She wanted to be my friend. And she said she liked me a whole bunch. A whole bunch.

_ She doesn’t know _ , a little voice in my head warned. But I don’t have to worry about that anymore, I thought back. I won’t worry about it. Not when she might just like me back… 

“Johnny?”

I blinked. “Right. Yeah. Yeah, uh, we can do this again sometime if you want,” I said. “I… I had a cool ol’ time, too.”

“Great,” she beamed. I felt myself smiling back. It sure did feel good to be smiling so much. I wondered if Soda felt like this all the time, from all the smiling he does. I wondered if this was the life he seemed to get so drunk on.

I was so busy wondering about smiling and happiness and Rita, Rita,  _ Rita _ , that I didn’t even notice the T-bird rolling up the street towards us until it stopped against the curb and I heard the doors slam and saw three guys get out out of the corner of my eye.

Rita turned around, her cigarette hanging off her lips, her eyebrows lowering over her dark eyes as her body went tense. She took a half step in front of me. The T-bird’s headlights threw out shadows on the wall of the building beside us.

My heart was hammering in my chest, louder and louder, as those guys came halfway into their own light. Their faces were all shadowy in harsh angles and none of them were smiling. Their shirts didn’t have a wrinkle out of place. And that T-bird was brand new.

“Thought Rusty’s was the Socs’ usual scene,” Rita said, loud and hard as any one of the boys. She was looking the nearest guy dead in the eye. She wasn’t scared, or at least didn’t look it. I couldn’t see her face but I bet it was as tough as she sounded.

As for me, I knew I was scared outta my mind, but… I wasn’t scared of  _ them _ . My whole body was cold and tight, the way I get when I get cornered. But I wasn’t scared of them. Three Socs were about to start something, but I wasn’t scared of them. What  _ was  _ spooking me to the bone, turning my blood to ice, setting my whole body so on edge I thought I’d snap, was the image of the fountain, the Mustang, the switchblade on a different night… The boy lying doubled up in the dark, the switch in my hands… my hands…  _ my hands _ … 

“Beat it, scum.” Rita was still staring down that lead guy, looking like she was fixing to tackle him to the ground if he made one wrong move. I really believed she would do it, too. “This ain’t your turf.”

“The hell do you know about turf, new girl?” The Soc snarled. “If I were you, I’d just run along home now, before something goes down you don’t need to see.”

Rita flicked a glance back at me, then turned an even darker glare back on the Soc. “I’m not going  _ anywhere _ ,” she snarled. “I’m not just gonna let you jump him.”

“He your… friend?” One of the other guys called her a dirty slur under his breath, and his buddy behind him snickered. I didn’t like the look in their eyes as they looked Rita up and down.

The lead guy reached into his back pocket and pulled out a switch, real slow. My heart shot into my throat. She was gonna get  _ cut _ . “You want some of this, too, huh, darlin’? I’m sure my pals and I’ll be happy to oblige. We’ll take  _ extra  _ special care of  _ you  _ once I’m done with your… friend here.”

“ _ Don’t touch her! _ ” I shouted suddenly, shoving past Rita on instinct. Adrenaline was soaring through my veins. I froze before I could get any closer, just stood there ready to jump at the first sign of them moving in on us. On her. My breath was coming in fast bursts and my nails were digging into my palms hard enough to break skin.

One of the other guys suddenly went still and dropped his leering smirk. He swore. “Man, that’s… it’s  _ that _ guy,” he whispered.

Rita looked at me in confusion as I felt my entire body go very, very still.

“Really?” the other said, his eyes growing wide. “The one who -”

“Yeah.”

“Are you serious?” The leader didn’t look cocky anymore. He lowered his knife and stepped back.

Rita whispered to me. “Johnny,” she murmured, “What are they talking about.”

“Shut up,” I breathed, barely paying attention to her. My entire focus was trained right on the lead Soc, as if I could beg him, plead him, not so say another word,  _ not another word, please don’t say another word… _

“Let’s beat it,” one of them said, then all three began clambering back into the car. The driver paused with one leg in, one hand on the top of the door, but he didn’t glare at me - he glared at  _ Rita. _

“You shoulda done your history, girl. You’d best beat it on home, back where you came from. It’s a real bad idea, try’na make a boyfriend outta a murderer.”

The T-bird roared off. Rita and I just stood there, frozen, for a long while. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. They were long gone, but their words hung in the air like fog. No… like a harsh ray of light, breaking  _ through  _ the fog after being held back for too long.

Rita recovered first. She cussed them out viciously. “What do they know?” she insisted, but her words didn’t have the same edge they had before. “They’re just a bunch of stuck-up…”

I looked at her, and she shut up. I looked at her to brush it off, play it down, tell her they were bluffing to get one last jab at her, but she shut up because I knew she could read everything on my face.

Everything.

Especially the fact that it hadn’t been a bluff. I wanted to deny it, lie, but I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t tell her he was wrong… because he wasn’t.

“You… no,” she said softly, her eyebrows creasing upwards in the middle. “There’s… there’s no way. You didn’t… that can’t be it,  _ can’t  _ be…”

I swallowed. I couldn’t say anything. I just watched her eyes get bigger and bigger the longer I went without denying it. As she realized a denial wasn’t coming. “Johnny…” she brought her hands up, inching toward her mouth in its horrified O.

“I’m sorry,” I breathed, stepping back.

“Johnny -”

I couldn’t listen to her, so I did the only thing I knew how to do.

I turned and ran.

She didn’t follow. No footsteps rang after mine, no voice calling my name, asking me to come back. Just dead silence.

I didn’t blame her.

A body, doubled up by the fountain. A knife, dark to the hilt. A train, a church, a fire. And a legacy that would follow me until I died. Pony had been right. Soda and I were dumb to have thought we could keep it hidden from her.

I’d been scared just then, in the headlights of the brand-new T-bird. Not of the Socs. Of myself.

Of what I could have done to them.

Of what I had done to one of them.

And now… Rita was finally scared of me, too.


	6. Ponyboy

Someone knocked on our door that night, which was weird because the rest of the gang never knocks when they could just barge in loudly and let the screen door slam behind them instead. I was on the couch reading ahead in  _ The Great Gatsby _ , so I hopped up and opened it.

Rita stood on the porch, alone and looking like she’d just seen a ghost. “Hey, Rita,” I said.

She just swallowed and said, “Is… is it true?”

“Is what true?”

“Did Johnny… did he…  _ kill _ someone?”

I didn’t mean to show anything on my face ‘cause I’d sworn to secrecy and all, but she must have seen something in my expression anyway. Her mouth opened and she kind of took a breath. “Oh, god…”

“Do you wanna come in?” I asked quietly, feeling lousy that I hadn’t been able to keep my shock off my face. She just nodded and sat right down on the couch in kind of a daze. I closed the door and sat next to her. Her fists were clenched on her knees. “Did, uh… did he tell you?” I asked.

Her head snapped to me. “ _ No _ , he didn’t  _ tell  _ me, Ponyboy!”

“Oh.” My stomach felt sorta sick. I knew this was a bad idea, I knew this was a bad idea, I knew this was a bad idea… I was just surprised it got out so soon. Surprised and worried, for Johnny. “Where’s Johnny?”

“Gone. I don’t know. He just bolted. I don’t know where he is.” She covered her mouth and her brown eyes got shiny with tears. “I just… I can’t believe it, I  _ can’t _ , that he… that  _ he _ …”

“If it makes you feel any better, Rita, it was self-defense -”

“Tell me everything.” Gosh, did she have a scary intense stare when she wanted to. She kinda scared me when she got like that. “You know what happened, don’t you.”

Not a question. I swallowed. “I… I was there,” I murmured.

“Then tell me everything, ‘cause god knows he couldn’t, and  _ he  _ was the one who…” she stopped herself and closed those intense eyes of hers. “Just… tell me everything.”

I hesitated at first, rubbing my fingers in my lap, but I eventually started talking. I did tell her everything. How Dally and Johnny and me went to the Nightly Double and picked up Cherry and Marcia, and how that didn’t sit too hot with their boyfriends when they ran into us on the street. I told her about the lot, Darry hitting me for not using my head, running off to the park to cool down. Her expression changed when I told her how the Socs pulled up in their blue Mustang and how Johnny’d been beat up by Bob real bad a couple months earlier and had taken to carrying a switchblade in case they ever did it again. I told her how they grabbed me and tried to drown me. And the scene I woke back up to.

She had to close her eyes when I got to that part.

I got a little nervous so I kind of skimmed over the whole bit how we ran away on the train and hid out in that old church for a week. Rita almost laughed when I mentioned reading  _ Gone With The Wind _ . “So that’s where he heard it read aloud,” she said, smiling except that she didn’t look happy. She still had this shocked look in her eyes like she’d seen a ghost as I finished up the story. How Dally picked us up, how we came back to see the church on fire, and how Johnny and me saved those eight schoolkids, how we got carted to the hospital and everyone was real scared Johnny busted his back too bad and wouldn’t be able to walk again but he ended up okay. 

“There was a trial,” I finished up. “A bunch of the Socs testified that Johnny killed Bob Sheldon out of self-defense because they were drunk and looking for a fight. He got let off. And the courts didn’t split up Darry and Soda and me, neither.”

Rita had flopped backwards and was leaning against the back of the couch, staring off into space and thinking. Digesting everything I said. She sat like that for a long time. Eventually, she said, “How come I’ve never heard  _ any _ of that before right now. How come I never once heard  _ anyone  _ talk about Bob Sheldon, or even that church fire.”

“We were scared, back then, when all of that was going on,” I said quietly. “Scared for me, scared for Johnny… heck, none of us wanted to relive those few weeks. It wasn’t a good time for any of us. And even later… it wasn’t just because of you we kept our traps shut. We’d kept quiet long before you moved here, too. I mean, you know Johnny, all quiet and sensitive and selfless and all, no one really wanted to remember what he’d done when he got cornered. It just wasn’t him. And I think it still bothers him a lot more than he lets on, so we don’t bring it up around him. Steve passed it on to Evie who passed it on to all your girl-friends. So you just… never heard it from us.”

She sighed and crossed her arms limply over her stomach. “We were on a date,” she said softly. “He took me on a date tonight, you know. Out in town. We got ice cream.” The corner of her mouth almost smiled for a second, but then it was gone. “But some Socs pulled up and made like they were gonna jump him and do worse to me, until one of them recognized Johnny - I guess from all the publicity back when everything was… going on. They… they called him a murderer and told me to stay away if I knew what was good for me.”

I felt bad for her. It had taken a lot for Johnny to take her on that date, but a bunch of lousy Socs just had to go and ruin it for them. He’d been real excited, too. Nervous but excited. Rita was clearly all shook up about it - and she sounded like she’d had a real nice time, too. I couldn’t imagine what Johnny had to be feeling, wherever he was, if  _ Rita _ was this upset by their nice time being destroyed by the past.

I was almost glad I couldn’t see the look in his eyes right then. I was sure I’d probably bawl if I could. I hated to see Johnny defeated.

“He’s not a murderer,” I found myself saying. “I mean… he killed Bob, but it was self-defense. He was scared and panicked. You already know the real Johnny, Rita, the one who digs football and being read to and spending time with his friends.  _ That’s  _ who he really is. Please… please don’t think different of him, now. If you can.”

“I wish he’d have told me.”

“I know. But I feel like… he’d’ve had to have gotten over what he’d done - you know, like  _ personally _ \- in order to feel comfortable telling you. I don’t think he  _ has  _ gotten over it. And maybe the gang was wrong not to talk about it more, maybe we forced him to bury it inside himself without actually letting it heal. I think… I think he still scares  _ himself _ , and that’s why he didn’t want to scare you before tonight.”

“If he can’t forgive himself, then how could I?” she mumbled to herself - not like that was what she thought, but more like she was realizing that’s what had been going through his mind this whole time. I was pretty sure she was right. Johnny thought in ultimatums like that a lot.

If he can’t love himself, knowing what he did, then he didn’t expect Rita to love him, either.

But I saw how happy Johnny was around her, I heard him say he liked her and I really believed him. Loving her was one of the best things that happened to him, which was huge ‘cause his life had always been so lousy. I really hoped that somehow, he and Rita could pull through… but the look on Rita’s face didn’t leave me too optimistic. “So… what are you gonna do now?” I asked her.

She shook her head. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know. I… I think I need some space. I need time away - from him, from the gang, from all of this. This is too much to deal with all at once right now.”

“Okay,” I said, standing up. “Okay, yeah. Take al the time you need. That’s a good idea.”

She offered me a fleeting smile that was gone in an instant. “Thanks, Pony,” she said, standing up too and heading for the door.

“See you around,” I said as she passed me. She just paused with her hand on the doorknob of the screen door before pushing it open and slipping out into the night without a word. My stomach turned icy. “Right?” I called through the screen.

The night didn’t answer me.

~

Johnny stayed out all night and all the next day, but he showed up at our house that following night and slept on the couch. He barely said a word and didn’t look me or Darry or even Soda in the eye.

But he didn’t have to tell us anything. He figured all of us - the whole gang - already knew what happened and he was right.

It was Saturday, that day after Rita came home from the date, that full day Johnny spent alone away from us. The gang usually plays football Saturday mornings, but it was weird without Johnny or Rita around. Rita didn’t show. We didn’t see her all day, actually. I had to tell Two-Bit and Steve what happened ‘cause they were fixing to bust down her door if she didn’t come out and even out the teams. They dropped that idea real fast once I did.

We tried to keep a game going, but it just didn’t feel right. No one really got into it - not even Steve, who always goes hard in games even though he’s got the worst throwing arm out of all of us. Dally was the only one really trying, but even he was being more aggressive than usual. He almost knocked Two-Bit’s head clean off when he tried passing.

His ice-blue eyes had that murderous set to them that I recognized from when he’d stormed off the slash Tim Shepherd’s tires after Johnny told him to lay off Cherry at the Nightly Double. I figures Tim’s tires would get the same treatment again later that day. Dally wanted to hurt someone -  _ anyone -  _ preferably Rita, I supposed - but he knew it wasn’t her fault Johnny’s past got out so he couldn’t really blame her, even though he blamed her for everything and seemed to generally hate her guts. He just needed to hurt somebody to deal with the fault that Johnny got hurt. That murderous look didn’t go away even after Johnny showed up again and started hanging around the gang again. Johnny Cade was hurting, and by god, Dallas Winston was going to make someone pay.

Rita never showed that weekend, and I didn’t see her until English class on Monday. Even then, she barely managed a glance in my direction. She got rides to and from school with Evie’s crew and stayed out with them or holed up in her house, mostly.

She didn’t come to the lot to read  _ The Great Gatsby _ . By then I kinda figured she wouldn’t, but it really hurt Johnny. He sat there flipping through the pages and staring at them blankly. We were so close to finishing the book, too. Jay Gatsby just got shot.

I missed Rita. I wished she’d come back.

But she needed her space, we all knew that. It just felt like we were missing a limb that all of us - Johnny especially, Johnny  _ specifically _ \- had grown fond of and just started to rely on.


	7. Rita

The pool balls clacked together with a sound like a gunshot. Evie straightened, resting the butt of the pool stick on the pool hall’s dark floorboards as she watched the colored orbs roll about. Her jaw was working on a piece of gum.

I didn’t pay much attention to which balls she sunk, but based on Billie Jo’s squeak and Mags’ holler of outrage, I figured she’d about doubled her lead she had on us already. I just rubbed my thumb over the chipping laquer on the stick in my hand. Back and forth. Worrying over the sliver of raw wood exposed.

“Hey Rita, cue up!” Mags said, pulling the cigarette out of her mouth with a grin. The smoke trailed into a cloud over our heads. The pool hall was crowded, after all, and the whole place stank of smoke and perfume and the occasional whiff of old beer from the bar out back. “Do something, will ya? We’re getting our asses kicked over here.”

I shook my head. “I dunno, doesn’t look like I’ll be much help against her.”

“Aw, give it a shot,” Ruthie said.

I did. I hit the ball. None went in. Mags cussed us both out and cued up herself. I went right back to leaning against the wall and watching. Absently rubbing the chipped lacquer.

“Hey.” Ruthie shifted her stick into the crook of her elbow and put her hand on my shoulder. Her brown eyes met my own. “How are you doing?”

I looked away and sighed. Pool balls clacked together. Ruthie leaned against the wall beside me. Mags banged her stick on the ground. “Ruth, let’s go, let’s go,” she chided.

“Billie Jo can have my turn,” Ruthie said, but the blonde in question had already abandoned her pool stick against the table and was coming over to join the two of us. Mags threw her hands into the air in exasperation.

Evie strode up, cocking her head and raising one eyebrow - the Evie version of a concerned look. “You okay?” she asked, her voice not as sharp as usual.

I shrugged and crossed my arms. “No.”

“Is it the… the you-know?” Billie Jo asked. I pressed my lips together as a confirmation. Her light-brown eyes flicked down. “Oh.”

“Five days?” Ruthie asked.

Evie piped up. “I get that it was a shock, but… still?”

“My mom came to me this morning,” I said suddenly, looking them all in the eye. All four of them had their focus square on me. Even Mags had abandoned the table. I swallowed. “To talk about staying. Here. In Tulsa.”

Four mouths opened in shock. “You’re moving?” Ruthie said.

“Again?” Mags asked.

“Where?” Billie Jo squeaked. 

I shook my head harder. “She threw out the offer of moving back to Des Moines, back in with… with my dad. Possibly. If I want. I’m the one in school still, she said it’s up to me.”

“I thought you and your mom and Dannie left your old man because he was a useless piece of trash,” Evie frowned.

“He is, and we did,” I explained. “It’s just… I’ve told my mom about this whole Soc-greaser feud that goes on around here - in school, on the streets, out in public - and all the violence and stuff. And she’s met you guys and the Curtis outfit, she knows how tough y’all gotta be all the time. And… a few weeks ago, my mom almost got caught up in a switchblade fight in the grocery store parking lot. She said they were flashing blades barely five feet away from her. Dropped a whole bag of bottles all over the ground.”

“Oh, gosh, why didn’t she mention that when we came over the other day?” Ruthie covered her mouth.

“What’s to mention, Ruth? That stuff happens all the time, older folks get caught up in it if they’re in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Evie countered.

“That’s just it,” I said. “It’s  _ dangerous _ in Tulsa, guys. There’s so much violence… and… and now people’ve been killed… not just hurt,  _ killed _ … my mom’s really on the fence, now…”

“Listen,” Evie said, “You gotta know… that thing with Johnny Cade and Bob, that was a fluke, an… an anomaly, you know -”

“I know, it’s just… it’s too much. My mom and I were just talking it over. We… we still have a place to live in Iowa, technically - I mean, my parents are just separated, they didn’t get an  _ official  _ divorce - and there’s less fighting there, we don’t… have to stay here.”

“What about us?” Billie Jo looked like she was ready to bawl.

“See, that’s just it,” I exclaimed, running one hand through my hair. “Because you girls… I love you girls, really. You might be some of the best friends I ever had… definitely the best girl-friends. And the Curtis outfit, too, those guys are real sweet. I don’t want to leave you all -”

“Then don’t, Rita.”

“But I don’t know if I can stay. If I should.”

“You’re considering moving back in with your old man?” Evie’s eyebrows crushed down. I nodded, and she gripped me by the shoulders, shaking Ruthie off. “You listen to me, Rita O’Malley. Your father’s a drunk and a bum, and you and your mother and sister are better off without trying to rely on him, ‘cause you know he doesn’t know jack about supporting a family. Don’t you  _ dare  _ tell me you two are gonna go crawling back. You’re  _ better  _ without him.”

“At what cost?” I whispered.

Her eyes flashed. “Do you  _ want  _ to be stuck in that house with him again? Do you  _ want  _ to stick your mom in there ‘till she dies? Is that what you  _ want _ , Rita?!”

“No!”

“Then you remind your mother that,” she sneered. “You remind your mother about me and your girls and the Curtis boys and Johnny Cade and all the  _ good  _ you found here, or by god I’ll remind her myself, you hear?”

“We’re your friends,” Billie Jo said.

“We’re your  _ sisters _ ,” Mags insisted. “I mean… I know you already got a real sister, but she’s in college and we’re here right beside you now.”

“Ain’t nothing gonna get to you with us around,” Evie actually half smiled.

“Evie carries a switch, you remember,” Mags jabbed her thumb at the leader. “And I’d take on a carful of Socs for you, Rita. So would Ruthie. So would Billie Jo.”

Billie Jo, fighting a carful of Socs? I thought to myself. I almost laughed except it came out as kind of a choke. My eyes started to tear up.

“Oh, sweetie,” Ruthie said, pulling me into a hug. Billie Jo wrapped her arms around my waist, and before I knew it, the whole crew was hugging me tight, next to the dingy pool table in the smoky room. Tears trailed down my cheeks.

Billie Jo poked my arm as we broke away. “You’re not gonna leave us, are you?” she asked.

I choked a laugh. “No,” I decided, taking them all in. “No, I’m not leaving you.”

“Good,” Evie said. “This city might be a hellhole, but there’s too much good over here in your neighborhood to turn your back on because of it. You’re not gonna find kids like us anywhere else.”

“I can’t imagine anyone else could get as nuts as you,” I smiled. She flicked her eyebrows but didn’t deny it.

“And,” Mags said, grinning, “Not only are you not gonna find  _ girls _ like us anywhere else, but you sure as hell ain’t finding any  _ boys  _ like we got here on the East Side, either.”

“Oh, don’t you start in with that,” Evie rolled her eyes.

“What? You know it’s true, and we all know this whole thing started ‘cause Miss Rita decided to go on a date with one of ‘em.”

I huffed a laugh, but my brief good mood had faded. I pictured Johnny’s face, looking -  _ gazing _ \- at me as I read  _ The Great Gatsby _ in the lot all those times. His rare, sweet smile and beautiful dark eyes. 

The horror on his own face after that T-bird drove off.

_ It’s a real bad idea, try’na make a boyfriend outta a murderer. _

“You’re sweet on Johnny Cade, aren’t you.”

“Yeah,” I whispered. But there was so much surrounding him, so much on his shoulders that I had no idea about… that he never told me… he never  _ told  _ me…

_ You already know the real Johnny, Rita, the one who digs football and being read to and spending time with his friends. _

Ponyboy’s words came back to me, then.

_ I think he still scares  _ himself _ , and that’s why he didn’t want to scare you _ .

Scares himself… because of one decision made in a panic of self-defense. One decision that defines him, now.

_ You already know the real Johnny. _

Ruthie must have been able to read my face like one of her many books. “You know what happened up in Windrixville after the attack, don’t you?” she offered. “The fire.”

I nodded. Pony’d told me, but I’d been pretty shell-shocked and hadn’t given it much thought up until now.

“He saved eight kids,” she said. “Him and Ponyboy both. Save them. They would have died if not for him running into that burning church.”

“They called him a hero in the papers for weeks,” Evie said.

“Cause he is,” Mags said, shaking her head of limp, brown curls. “He’s something special, that kid. Biggest heart outta anyone I know. Crazy brave, too.”

“Gallant,” Evie mused.

“Gallant,” I repeated. Johnny liked that word. He liked being gallant. He wanted to be someone who people called gallant.

“Anyone who knows him’ll tell you he doesn’t have a cruel bone in his body,” Billie Jo said. “He’s just so scared all the time, you know?”

Scared of the Socs who’d hurt him for kicks. Scared of his parents - who I’d unwittingly mirrored that day by the lot, and vowed to never, ever do again. Scared of himself. Scared of his past. Scared that the truth would push me away.

But I’d been scared that shouting at him would have pushed  _ him _ away, that day by the lot. But it didn’t. It didn’t scare him away because he knew that wasn’t me. Wasn’t what I wanted to be defined by.

And this… his past, his guilt and regret and fear… I wouldn’t let it scare me away now. I wouldn’t let it define him.

He was the one with the trauma - and  _ I  _ was the one who had avoided  _ him _ these past five days, like  _ I  _ was the victim in this scenario, in being kept in the dark? Sure, he probably should have told me before those Socs did, but distance wasn’t what he needed. Silence wasn’t what he needed. Someone needed to be there for him to help him pick up his pieces.

And I wanted to be that person. 

I knew the real Johnny. And I liked him. A lot.

“I think I need to talk to him,” I said.

“Then you do that,” Mags smiled, her eyes holding the tiniest knowing smirk. “I think you owe it to him. And to yourself.”

“Ruthie can cover your rounds in this game,” Evie said, smirking unabashedly. “Not like it’d make much of a difference, it’s not like any of y’all are gonna make any kind of comeback anytime soon.”

“We got your back,” said Ruthie. “Go.”

Gosh, did I love those girls. “Thanks,” I said to them. Billie Jo Coleman. Margaret Tracy. Ruth Jackson. Evie Lang. “For everything, really.”

Evie smiled. “Anytime, sister.”

~

It was golden hour, the sun starting its final glowing descent.

He wouldn’t be at his own house. He hardly ever went there. I would have better luck trying the lot or the field or the Curtis house first. The pool hall was just a couple blocks down from the lot, so I checked there first, but it was vacant. A couple new broken pop bottles, maybe. But no greasers.

No Johnny.

I tried the Curtis house next. I heard hollering down the street and for a second I froze, thinking it might have been Darry and Pony hacked off at each other, but I quickly recognized Two-Bit’s voice and laugh and realized the whole gang was in there, making a general ruckus. I pushed open the chain link fence, hopped the front porch, and pushed right on in. That was how you deal with those guys, anyway.

Five of them were there. Soda and Two-Bit were on the ground, wrestling. Darry looked like he’d been interrupted in the middle of a card game. The TV was on in the background. All five of them froze and stared as soon as I walked through the door. They were silent for a heartbeat. In that time, I sized up who was there.

No Johnny. No Dallas, either.

“Rita,” Ponyboy squeaked from the couch.

“Where’s Johnny?” I asked. All the guys shared a look. I set my jaw. “Where is he?”

“Dally’s,” Darry said cautiously.

_ Dally’s.  _ I knew where that was. Evie lived a few houses over. “Thanks,” I said, whirling right back out the door again.

“Hey, hey, whoa,” Steve snapped, holding out his cigarette in my direction. I gripped the doorframe and glared at him. He narrowed his eyes right back. “The hell you want Johnny for all of a sudden?”

“You’re not mad at him, are you?” Soda asked, pushing himself up off the floor.

“No,” I said, “I’m  _ not  _ mad at him, and I need to make sure he  _ knows  _ that.” And I turned and left.

My heart was beating against my ribs. I was running, I realized. My shoes hit the pavement as I dashed down the broken sidewalk. The sun was still throwing lengthening, golden shadows. Sunset would fall soon.

I knew which one was Dally’s. Mags had pointed it out to me one day. Dallas Winston did intimidate me still, but I didn’t let that stop me from catching my breath in the overgrown front lawn and banging on his front door.  _ That  _ was how you deal with  _ Dally. _

The door hinges screeched as the towheaded greaser answered it. A dark expression settled over his face - darker than it normally was. “Come back with a warrant,” he grumbled.

“I need to talk to Johnny,” I demanded.

“Johnny who?”

“I know he’s here.”

“Get lost, O’Malley, I’ll call the cops.”

“Like hell you are. You ain’t calling the cops, and I ain’t going anywhere until I see him.”

“Have a nice night sitting out in the cold, then. Don’t come cryin’ to me if you freeze to death -”

“Dally.”

Dallas’ face hardened as the small voice came from behind him. I couldn’t help smirking a little. “What was that you said? ‘Johnny who’?”

“ _ Can it _ ,” he growled. Over his shoulder, keeping the door in the way of my line of sight, he muttered, “The hell do you think  _ you’re  _ doin’? Can’t you see I’m busy saving your ass?”

“You don’t gotta be mean to her -”

“Fine,” Dally spat, throwing the door open fully and stalking off. “See if I ever try and help  _ you  _ again.”

And then it was me and Johnny on the opposite sides of the door, looking at each other for the first time in what felt like ages. Neither of us moved or said anything. My pulse was rushing in my ears. Johnny looked pale, staring into my eyes.

I swallowed and spoke first. After the high of arguing with Dally, trying to talk to Johnny suddenly felt too forward, too loud. Like one wrong word would send him fleeing. “Can… can I… talk to you?” I asked quietly. Maybe too quietly. Now I was overcompensating. I never seemed to know how to hold a normal conversation with this boy.

I watched his throat bob once, and then he whispered, “Sure.”

“Okay.” I stepped back, away from the door to give him space to come out onto the cement block of a front stoop with me. His hands were shoved deep in his pockets and his shoulders were tense. So were mine, I realized. I fought to relax them.

“Why… did you come back?” His voice was so quiet, and there was a furrow between his eyebrows as he searched my face for answers. He really hadn’t expected to see me again. He’d accepted the belief that I’d leave him forever now that I knew. The fact that I was  _ here _ , that I’d been  _ looking  _ for him, that I cared where he was… it was baffling to him. He was in shock.

I shrugged my arms as I tried to form my next words real carefully.  _ Why did I come back? Because I’m not scared. I’m not scared of you, or what you did or what you are. Because I know you. Because I forgive you. I forgive you, Johnny Cade, even if you don’t forgive yourself, not yet. Because I care about you enough to want to see you  _ healed _ from what you had to go through. _

_ Because I love you. _

“I came back,” I said slowly, softly, “Because I believe in second chances.”

His black eyes grew wider.

“Second chances… like the one you got in Windrixville,” I explained as he stood there and listened. “In the fire. You… you might have… ended one life…” he winced at that “... but you were given a second chance and you saved eight. Eight lives, saved. By you. A hero. A  _ hero _ , get it?  _ That’s  _ what you are. And if people want to define you by one thing you did one time - hell, if you want to define  _ yourself _ that way - then let it be by  _ that _ action. Not the one that started it all, the one that  _ ended  _ it. You, being a hero. Being  _ gallant _ .”

“But I killed him,” he whispered. “I… I  _ killed _ him, Rita, and I shoulda told you that and I didn’t and I’m so sorry and I see his face everwhere I go and… and I should have died in the fire because I killed that boy -”

“In self-defense.”

He was shaking his head, his long black hair. “It’s only fair, I should have… I shouldn’t have had to live with this… Why should  _ I  _ get to live when  _ he  _ doesn’t since it’s  _ my  _ fault -”

“But you  _ didn’t  _ die,” I insisted. “You didn’t. You got hurt but you healed and got better and you  _ lived _ .  _ That’s  _ a second chance. That’s what life is all about, you know, getting hurt and healing from it. You still have this second chance right in front of you, to go back to your life and make it  _ different _ . Better, even.”

“What I have in front of me doesn’t change what happened back then,” he said.

“You’re right. It doesn’t. But it does give you a chance to heal. To move on. Your best shot is to take what you’ve been given and make the most of it.” I shook my head gently. “Don’t waste it agonizing over the past. Please.”

He swallowed. “Why do you care how I spend it?”

“Because I want to help you move on. If you’ll let me.”

We were both quiet for a while, just looking at each other. And gosh, was he sure cute. Eventually, he admitted, “I didn’t think you would stay, after… after you knew.”

I didn’t tell him that I almost didn’t. He didn’t need to know that I really had been considering moving back to Iowa. But I wasn’t going to do that anymore. I would tell my mom that. I had the girls here -  _ my  _ girls. My sisters, really. And I had him, too. “Well… I stayed,” I shrugged.

“And you’re… you’re not gonna abandon me over this?”

“No. I’m not.”

He looked down at his shoes. I thought I heard him say something, but his voice was just too soft. I frowned. “What?”

He looked up again. “Thank you,” he said, his voice barely audible… and the tiniest hint of a smile on his lips. Like he couldn’t believe this was really happening. That I was staying. Like he hadn’t even dared to hope, up until now, but now… he realized he could.

I had to offer a smile back. “I’m sorry I avoided you for so long,” I said.

“It’s okay. I’m… I’m glad you came back, Rita.”

I dipped my chin. “So am I.”


	8. Johnny

It didn’t change anything. That night, I still ended up waking up in a cold sweat after dreaming that I was back in the park except the park was on fire. I’d been getting dreams like that a lot recently, some worse than others. Having Rita back didn’t get rid of them all of a sudden. It didn’t change my deep-rooted fear.

But for the first time, I woke up panicking but heard Rita’s words in my head almost right away.

_ You have this second chance right in front of you. I want to help you move on. If you’ll let me. _

I squeezed my eyes shut real tight and pushed away the thoughts of switches and flames and blood, instead thinking about Rita. The soft openness in her brown eyes. The setting sun on her face - the same kind of light I saw lighting up the valley when I watched the sun rise on Jay Mountain. That wasn’t the face of someone scared. I didn’t scare her off. I didn’t scare her off.  _ I didn’t _ .

But I should have known better than to think that  _ anything  _ could scare Rita O’Malley.

She came back. She found out but she came back and she wanted to help me.

I had no idea how she thought she could, but somehow that realization was enough to calm my racing heart for just that moment. The gang… the gang cared about me. That’s why they didn’t want to cause me any more pain by bringing up what happened, they knew it had been bugging me since the trial. And I didn’t even want to bring it up myself if it ever got bad because I didn’t want them to worry about me any more than they already did. So I just lived and suffered in silence until that T-bird roared off down the street. And when it did, I beat it outta there. 

I didn’t know how to talk about Bob. I’d never done it before, not really. Not in any way that mattered. I didn’t know how.

And then Rita came back and the sight of her face after so long of worrying and feeling sorry for myself had me saying stuff I never dared to say to the rest of the boys. And she just took it and said she wanted to help me.  _ Me _ . Like she could see right through the murderer and find her friend again like nothing ever happened.

And she was going to help me take my second chance I’d been given. I knew what it felt like to talk about the past with her now, it felt… like letting out a breath I’d been holding. Maybe only for a few minutes. But I could do it again. She’d be there for me. Like the gang was, but more than that. She’d be there to help me.

Rita O’Malley really was different from everyone else I knew, and I loved her for it.

She came to the lot the next day. Pony jabbed me with his elbow and pointed her out as she hopped the curb with a little smile. My heart did a hot flip. She took a bit to get comfortable around us again, since she’d been away for so long, but we eventually settled in and she read the rest of  _ The Great Gatsby _ out loud. There wasn’t much left. It didn’t end too happily, but I didn’t care so much ‘cause it was Rita who read it.

That last line kinda stuck with me, though, the whole next day at school. “ _ So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past _ ,” it said. I had to get Rita to explain some of the words, but once she did I kept thinking about it. It reminded me of us a bit, how Gatsby tried to cover up his past in the Midwest so he could get his girl to like him again, but he couldn’t help getting reminded of where he came from no matter how hard he tried. That was what the whole ‘boats against the current’ bit was about, that you can’t hide the past forever. 

Well, I sure knew that firsthand. But maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing - after all, Gatsby got shot in the end ‘cause he tried too hard. I got borne back into the past just like he did but it turned out okay for me. Rita still talked to me. I think she talked to me more, actually. More genuinely, now that she knew where I came from. Maybe Gatsby’s girl woulda done the same thing if he’d just up and come clean with her.

I told all these things to Rita as we walked home. She let her friends drive off without her just that once ‘cause I guess she could tell how excited I was about what I came up with. She got real excited, too, once I was done.

“That’s exactly it,” she grinned. “That’s a perfect connection, Johnny, I love it. You could turn all of that into the tuffest ol’ semester theme this school has ever seen, I’m serious.”

“Really?” I blushed. “Shoot, thinking about this stuff is one thing, but try’na write it down on paper is a whole other thing. I’m no good at themes, I always get lousy marks.”

“I’ll help you with that, too,” she grinned. “That can be the next focus of the study group -  _ theme writing. _ ”

“Pony’s already good at themes, though. Didn’t he tell you about that one time he turned in a practical  _ book  _ to pull his grade up after the trial?”

She stared at me. “No?” she said, “I’ll have to talk to him about that. But nevermind him, Johnny Cade, I vowed to help  _ you  _ and that’s what I’m gonna do. You ain’t failing any classes on my watch.”

I grinned at my shoes as we walked. Eventually, real casual-like, I asked her something that I’d meant to ask a while ago. Before the T-bird and the separation it caused. “Hey, Rita,” I said.

“Yeah?”

I shrugged and scuffed a rock with my toe. “You ever… thought about, I dunno… goin’ steady?”

She stopped. My head snapped up and my stomach gave a painful lurch,  _ oh glory I went too far _ \- but her face just looked confused. “I…” she said, furrowing her brow, “I thought… we already were.”

Now it was my turn to be confused. “What?”

“Were we not already going steady?”

“I…” I couldn’t really think. My whole body felt hot. “... No? What are you talking about?”

“I dunno.” Her face was flustered, her cheeks going red. “I just… well, I assumed… since you took me on that date in town…”

“I… I didn’t say it was a date.”

“I know, but… it still kinda was one, you know? Just you and me…”

Of course it was a date. I knew it was a date. That’s why I picked her up. But I didn’t think that  _ meant _ the same as going steady. “Oh,” was all I could squeak out.  _ Are we really already together? Is it really that easy? Am I… her boyfriend? _

“Well, I guess,” she said, flustered, “If you want to go steady for real, then… we just… keep doing what we’re doing.”

I shrugged. “I mean…”

“I’m sorry, I don’t know how this works.”

“Neither do I. Soda’s the expert, really.”

“I bet he is.”

“But… yeah. I guess we could just… keep this up. That’s… all I would want.”

“Me, too.”

“Okay.”

“Cool.”

We stared at each other for a long time, our faces burning. I eventually shrugged my nervous shoulders and said, “So… why don’t, uh… why don’t we get you home… babe?”

Rita burst out laughing with a snort. I blanched. “Sorry.”

“No,” she gasped, “No, it’s okay, it’s just weird hearing you say that all of a sudden.”

“I can come up with something else if you think it’s no good -”

“We’ll work on it,” she assured me, patting my shoulder with a grin and setting off again. “Don’t you worry…  _ babe _ .”

I gave a single breathy short of my own before following after her. I wasn’t worried. I didn’t need to be.

With Rita by my side, I didn’t have to worry about a thing.

~

“No way. Not you.”

“Aw, come on, Dal,” Soda groaned.

“No.” Dally was glowering against the chain link fence, arms crossed as he stared down me and Rita. The rest of the gang had taken the two of us being together pretty good, but not Dally. I kinda expected that. I knew he didn’t like her real well, but I had hoped he’d get over it. I just kinda wanted Dallas Winston to approve.

“What’s wrong with me?” Rita challenged, crossing her arms, too.

Dally just sniffed. “I don’t like you.”

“But Johnny does,” Ponyboy piped up. “You haven’t seen ‘em together enough.”

“Outta all the broads in this town, he goes and picks up  _ this  _ one.”

“Give me one good reason I’m not good enough for your best friend,” Rita demanded.

“Too smart.”

“I like her smart,” I murmured.

“See? He likes me smart.” She was smirking.

Dallas pointed a finger in her face. She didn’t flinch. If that didn’t scare her, then nothing ever would.  _ That’s my girl, for ya. _ “You just listen here, dig?” Dally threatened. “Y’all can be a couple all you want, see if I care, but don’t you forget that I never liked you, O’Malley, and I never will. So if anything happens to Johnnycake, you’re dead. Get it?”

She raised an eyebrow. “Does this mean you’ll lay off us?”

Dally scoffed. “Only for as long as the kid wants you around. The second he’s done,  _ you’re  _ done.”

I felt my face light up. I looked at Rita and gave her a small smile. She winked back. Maybe Dally would warm up to her. Maybe he  _ would  _ approve. “Thanks, Dally,” I said quietly.

“I don’t know what you’re thankin’ me for,” he grumbled. “I tried to tell you she’s no good, but did you listen to me? No  _ sir _ . And now you’re goin’ steady…” he dissolved into mutterings. No one paid him much attention.

As for Rita - well, she was the gang’s newest thing to marvel over. “Our very own Johnnycake,” Two-Bit crowed, “And the woman, the myth, the  _ legend _ , the gal who puts the ‘I’ in ‘team’ with her unmatched pro football moves, the gal who’d ace a history test at 2 and beat up twenty Socs at 3 with nothing but her biting wit to back her up -  _ Rita Marie O’Malley! _ Now  _ this  _ is a pairing I never thought I’d see.”

“Is your middle name really Marie?” Ponyboy asked her.

“It’s Anne, actually.” She narrowed her eyes playfully at Two-Bit, who gave a big shrug and started complaining about how every girl he knew had Marie as a middle name. Thought it was a law or something.

“Rita Anne O’Malley?” I asked her. She nodded. “That’s real pretty.”

“Thanks.”

“She don’t even look like she should be an  _ O’Malley _ in the first place,” Dally piped up from his sulking, trying to find any way he could to pick a fight with her again.

She just sent him a cool look. “Yeah?” she challenged, looking around at the rest of the boys. “Two-Bit over here doesn’t look like a handful of pocket change. Ponyboy sure as hell ain’t a horse.  _ You  _ don’t look like a whole  _ city  _ to me, what’re you try’na say, Dallas?”

“Don’t get wise,” was all he huffed in response, his lousy attempt at starting something effectively shut down. 

I noticed something, then. He clearly still didn’t like Rita… but he did care about me. I was his buddy. And  _ I  _ sure liked her. He coulda gotten a whole lot mouthier with her down that path the conversation was going, but he didn’t. He just let Rita drag him through the mud and didn’t retaliate. No one in the gang had that kind of protection from his moods. No one. Except maybe me.

And now that she and I were a couple, a package deal almost… Rita had my immunity by association.

I could tell by her smirk that she’d realized it, too. And unlike me, she was gonna  _ use it _ .

I couldn’t help but grin a little, despite Dally’s glowering. Things were gonna get interesting around here.

Yeah. I could get used to having Rita around.


End file.
